Amiga Beginners help line ------------------------- Since I wrote my A1200 beginners guides I have often been asked for help from new Amiga owners who are frustrated with the bad Amiga manuals and lack of free technical support from elsewhere. I have always helped these people when I could and I enjoy the buzz I get in return from helping people. The problem is I am trying to run a business here and I have limited time to deal with non-paying customers requests. I want to continue helping beginners but it must have some return for me and the business, time is money and all that. I do not want to start a club or scheme where you pay membership. I do not want to charge a fixed rate. I do not want to price people out of getting help. But I need to charge something. This is what I have come up with. I hope this is a fair scheme that anyone can use without the worry of money. CLICK ON THE 'NEXT' BUTTON BELOW> * Send in your questions, preferabbly typed/printed or on disk in ASCII format or, if you must, in clear hand writing. See later for explanation of ASCII. * Include at least one floppy disk, because I will prob send you a utility or two that will help you with your problem or just some general tools that everyone should have. * Include a 1st class postage stamp and a sticky label with your name & address on it. * Please send in a jiffy bag, NOT an envelope. * Give as much relevant info to your prob as possible. * Tell me your exact setup i.e. A1200, 2meg, 120meg hard drive, monitor DF1: Workench version and anything else you can think of. IF YOU DO NOT DO THE ABOVE I MAY NOT HELP YOU. I will do my best to answer your questions. I wil return your disk, with programs on it probably and a printed letter. Usually this will take 1-3 days. But be prepared for a max of 1 week. Now this is where the money comes in: If you are happy with the answers I would like you to make a Shareware type donation. Just send me something, it needn't be cash. No cheques please. You can send money or a postal order (made out to S.Bye, NOT F1 LICENCEWARE) If you send cash then make sure it is secreted well in the envelope/jiffy. Here are a few suggestions, in my order of prefernce: Cash, ahem! UK Postal Order made out to S.Bye and NOT crossed. Hand Rolling Tobacco, Sampson prefferably, but NOT Golden Virginina (yuk) All this stress makes me smoke more you see. Post Office telephone stamps, bloody Internet is killing me! Any commercial Amiga/PC/Internet/programming book. Any original piece of Amiga or PC commercial software on floppy or CD. P.C CD-Rom cover disks off of PC magazines, I love em. Buy 1 or more of my A1200 guides. Chocolate, no nuts in it and no plain choc, just good old fashioned dairy milk will do. Just send something from the above that you feel you can afford and what you feel my service to you is worth. Most people will have one of the above lying around the house unwanted and unloved :-) If you are skint just do what you can, I understand. Any liberty takers will only be able to use this service once. I don't see how I can be fairer than that. Just make a donation. ****THIS SERVICE IS BY POST ONLY, DON'T HASSLE ME ON THE PHONE PLEASE**** A1000, A2000. A3000 and A500 users I have forgotten what it is like to use thse machines so my help my be a bit limited. A600/A1200 is my preffered choice now days. I have never owned an A4000 (sob) but it uses the same Workbench as an A1200. I have also never used Workbench 3.1, can't see the point in upgrading for the price asked when it has little new to offer. But I will still try to help anyone on any Amiga. Quick explanation of ASCII and how to send me a letter on disk, which I prefer. ASCII, is a text standard that will work with most software on any computer. It stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Most Wordprocessors, Desktop Publishers, Text Editers support ASCII. If in doubt use 'ED' to type your letter. This is how to use ED and save to disk to a floppy send to me: * Load Workbench * Insert a disk into your internal drive either formatted or with some space on it. See last page of this cat disk on how to format a disk. * Double click on the Shell icon (found inside the 'System' drawer on your Workbench disk) * Type in the following: Ed F1letter And press return. * Ed will now load. Just start typing your letter. * When you have finished typing select 'SAVE AS' from the pull down menu * Use the file requester to save the file to DF0: and send the disk to me. Steve Bye 31, Wellington Rd Exeter, Devon. EX2-9DU. You can ask any questions on any Amiga related subject you want and I will try to answer them. I give no guaruntee that I will be able to help you and take no responsibilty to any damage or mishaps that may result in using my advice. I am undr NO OBLIGATION except to return your your disk. If you do not like these terms then do not use this service. Using this service is an aggreement to these terms. Steve Bye.